


to time wasting

by babybel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pining, must my fics be good? isn't it enough to write about 2 and jamie being stupid together?, takes place circa ep 1 of evil of the daleks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24206104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybel/pseuds/babybel
Summary: It hadn’t been busywork, not really. He’d invented it nearly from scratch; there wasn’t another clock anywhere in the universe that could do what the watch did. And there wasn’t a terrible need for it, and he wasn’t pressed for time, so he’d spent evening after evening after evening on it, making it perfect. Necessity, as some chap had surely called it, was not the mother of invention, at least not for him, and not with this. A case could be made, however, for love.-how jamie got his wristwatch
Relationships: Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	to time wasting

**Author's Note:**

> me setting fics about them trusting and adoring each other right before evil of the daleks: hey this is funny because-

They were sitting tucked up in a corner of a little café, waiting until it was time for them to head to Waterfield’s for their meeting. Jamie was watching the other people in the place, and watching the door; that soldier’s instinct might never fade. The Doctor was trying very hard to look like someone who was used to waiting through time linearly, and failing at it. 

Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours, so on and so forth until he really couldn’t believe it was like this for everybody all the time. He’d already gone through, in his head, lists of everything he wanted to look for at Waterfield’s, lists of where he might find Ian and Barbara if they were stuck in this time overnight and needed somewhere to stay, and lists of - providing he ever got his ship back - places he could take Jamie. 

And, really, he’d better get his ship back. Living a whole life like these past hours would be unimaginable. 

“Jamie,” he said, because he had to say something. Time passed quicker when you were making conversation, unless it was a terribly boring conversation. Then he realized he didn’t have any conversation to make. 

“Hm?” Jamie tore his eyes from the door. 

“Do you think… er…” The Doctor put a hand in his pocket, reaching around for something that might spark a discussion. He pulled out a few rubber bands and opera tickets and then something he’d forgotten about altogether. “Oh, Jamie- here. I’ve been meaning to give this to you.” He set the little wristwatch down next to Jamie’s tea saucer, and couldn’t help but get a bit excited to have found it. “I must’ve put it in my pocket and forgotten it was there.” 

“What is it, a little clock?” Jamie picked it up and looked at it. “Thanks, Doctor-”

“Now, before you say anything, I know it’s not the sort of think you’d want, but it’s really quite good.” The Doctor took it from Jamie. “Give me a hand; either one.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Jamie mumbled, and, after a moment’s consideration, held out his left hand. 

The Doctor carefully fastened the watch around Jamie’s wrist, and thought that he would probably never get used to how warm humans were. “I found it at a shop somewhere quite a while ago, and I took it apart and built it again. Now, wherever we land, it’ll know the time on that planet without needing setting.” 

Jamie looked down at it. “You made this?”

“Well, the insides of it. Not what you can see.” The Doctor made himself stop fiddling with the band of the watch; it was a transparent excuse to touch Jamie, which he’d been trying to call himself on as of late.

“It’ll come in useful,” Jamie said, and then, in the same breath, “I’d wear anything you gave me, you don’t have to- even if it doesn’t do anything. And this thing- eh?”

“Oh, wristwatch. People just call them watches now,” the Doctor supplied, and he would quite literally do anything for Jamie at the moment, and probably at every other moment from now until forever. 

“Right, this watch.” Jamie was looking down at it. “I’m sure I’ll be glad to have it next time we land the ship somewhere, and it’s so- pretty. I’ll not take it off.” 

“There are far prettier watches than that, Jamie, I’m sorry,” admitted the Doctor, needing to find fault in it so he could look back at everything Jamie was telling him and think about it critically rather than in a way that might lead himself on. 

“Aye, but I’ve not seen them, and- no there’s not. You made this one.” Jamie held his wrist out over the table, trying to get the face of the watch to catch the light, looking at it from different angles. 

“I just fixed it, I didn’t-”

“Don’t,” Jamie said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “It’s rude to talk about other people’s things like that, Doctor. I think my watch is the best watch there is, and I’ll not hear otherwise, specially not from you.”

“Well, it was mine before it was yours,” the Doctor replied, picking up on Jamie’s invitation to act out a fun little make-pretend-we’re-cross-at-each-other argument. 

“Well,” Jamie said, echoing the Doctor’s tone, “it’s mine now.” Then he leaned over the corner of the table and kissed the Doctor’s cheek. 

The Doctor blinked, and for whatever reason brought his hand up not to where Jamie’s lips had been but to the other side of his face, where Jamie’s hand had been just for that second. “Jamie, what-?”

“Well I saw- I didn’t-” Jamie cleared his throat, face flushing. “Polly did that when Ben got her that necklace, and I thought…” He’d sunken into himself the way he sometimes did, shoulders hunched up. 

“It’s not quite common practice, if that’s what you thought.” 

“I know it’s not common practice.” Jamie picked up his tea cup and tipped it from side to side, watching what was left of the tea move. Then he put the cup down and sighed. He looked down at the watch. “I really do like it. It’s good.” 

“I thought it was,” the Doctor agreed quietly. 

“It is.” 

“Good.”

“I shouldn’t have done that without asking first.” Jamie’s eyes had gone back to the door. “Wasn’t very much like a gentleman of me.” 

“No harm done,” the Doctor replied, and preoccupied himself with folding and unfolding his napkin. “You said you hadn’t thought it was common practice; what was it that you thought then? I mean, if you don’t-”

“I don’t mind.” Jamie ran his thumb over the face of the watch. “I thought it would be all right, that’s all.” 

“I think that it is all right,” said the Doctor. “It’s all right with me, at least. It was very sweet of you.” 

Jamie looked up at him for a second, then back down, and he shrugged, but he was smiling. “Sweeter of you to make me this thing.” He held up his hand. 

“Oh, it was just a bit of busywork. No trouble at all. Nothing, really.” The Doctor laced his fingers together and set his hands on the table in an attempt to stop fidgeting. It hadn’t been busywork, though, not really. He’d invented it nearly from scratch; there wasn’t another clock anywhere in the universe that could do what that watch did. And there wasn’t a terrible need for it, and he wasn’t pressed for time, so he’d spent evening after evening after evening on it, making it perfect. Necessity, as some chap had surely called it, was not the mother of invention, at least not for him, and not with this. A case could be made, however, for love.

“It’s not nothing to me, though,” Jamie said, and he said it like it was the simplest thing. “Even if it didn’t take you much time, it’s still… I don’t know.” 

The Doctor cleared his throat, and had no idea what he was meant to say. Usually he did just fine accepting compliments and thanks, but now it seemed important to downplay how much it mattered. But why should he? It did matter; how much he cared for Jamie mattered. But he couldn’t push himself into responding, and they just fell into silence, looking out the window or at the table or anywhere to avoid looking at one another. 

Finally, Jamie commented, “I think it flatters me.” His tone was that uppity goofy one he sometimes used when he felt like having a good joke at his own expense, probably to cover for being so sincere. He was looking at the watch again, turning his wrist over to see it from each side. 

“Well, I wouldn’t get ahead of yourself,” the Doctor muttered, in a way he knew would make Jamie laugh. 

Jamie did laugh, and he also smacked the Doctor’s shoulder very gently and muttered, “Walk on, will you.” 

And the Doctor thought that just from a scientific standpoint, objectively, Jamie was maybe the loveliest person in the whole entire universe. Even for all his bad posture and surly moods, and perhaps partway because of those; they were charming on the right person, which Jamie was. He unlaced his fingers to hold out a hand. “Let me see.” 

Jamie laid his wrist in the Doctor’s palm without asking for a reason. 

“It’s time we started over to Waterfield’s, I think,” the Doctor said, checking the watch. It really was best to be going, the little hands showed nearly nine. He’d been right: conversation had passed the time quickly. That and Jamie had kissed him, and that made everything worth it anyway. He’d wait through whole days linearly for that. 

Jamie held the door for him when they left, and then shadowed him as they walked, so close as to sometimes bump their shoulders together. The street was dark, lit by lamps at intervals that cast a golden glow over the sidewalk. 

The Doctor realized that he was wrong to downplay it. He didn’t want Jamie’s thanks, that wasn’t why he spent all that time on the thing, but it felt like lying not to let Jamie know why. “That’s the only watch like that in the universe,” he said, quietly, as they turned a corner. “I made it up for you.” 

Jamie stopped walking. “You what?” 

“Jamie, come on. We don’t want to be late.” 

Jamie grabbed the Doctor’s jacket sleeve to keep him from going on towards Waterfield’s. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to feel like you owe me anything back, I…” The Doctor shrugged. “I just wanted to do it.”

“I’ve never met someone like you, you know. I mean, space travel and that aside. Still.” Jamie was looking at him funny, just the tiniest bit of a smile on his face. “You’re strange.” 

“Ah- yes. Yes, I probably am.” It was a compliment, the Doctor could tell. It didn’t really mean weird, not in this case; there was too much awe in Jamie’s voice for that. 

And then Jamie was hugging him, so suddenly it knocked him back a step. 

“I’ll keep it forever. The watch.” Jamie was talking over the Doctor’s shoulder, hands tight in the fabric of his jacket. “I’ll never lose it, I promise.”

“Losing it shouldn’t be a problem,” the Doctor assured him, and carefully gave him a pat on the back. “I can just make a new one, if you keep me around too.” 

“Of course I will. That goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” The Doctor backed out of Jamie’s arms just enough to be able to see his face under the streetlamp.

Jamie was smiling. “Course it does.”

“Forever?” He knew he was pushing it a bit towards the realm of silliness, which was all right; it just made more of an opportunity to be happy. 

Jamie laughed, and he dropped his head down, resting his forehead on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Aye, forever,” he said, voice still warm with laughter, still audibly smiling. 

The Doctor put his hand on Jamie’s arm, and figured if they just stayed here forever and nothing changed, it would still be a perfect world. But there was something nagging at him, and after a moment, he got it. “Oh, Jamie, the time!”

“The time?” Jamie looked up. 

“Waterfield.” The Doctor’s hand dropped down to Jamie’s, which he held. 

“Oh, Waterfield.” Jamie nodded, and then gestured on down the street with a tip of his head and a _well, are we going?_ expression on his face.

The Doctor nodded back, and the two of them went the rest of the way to Waterfield’s hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @lesbiandonnanoble !


End file.
